set on hair-like
pedicels, and at a wide but not constant angle; at length reddish, with
a small cavity upon one side.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in cultivation throughout New England;
prefers moist, well-drained, gravelly loam in partial shade, but grows
well in any good soil; easily transplanted, but recovers its vigor
rather slowly; foliage free from disease.

Seldom grown in nurseries, but readily obtainable from northern
collectors of native plants.

[Illustration: PLATE LXXV.--Acer spicatum.]

1. Winter buds.
2. Flowering branch.
3. Sterile flower.
4. Abortive ovary in sterile flower.
5. Fertile flower with part of the perianth and stamens removed.
6. Fruiting branch.

=Acer Pennsylvanicum, L.=

STRIPED MAPLE. MOOSEWOOD. WHISTLEWOOD.

=Habitat and Range.=--Cool, rocky or sandy woods.

Nova Scotia to Lake Superior.

Maine,--abundant, especially northward in the forests; New Hampshire and
Vermont,--common in highland woods; Massachusetts,--common in the
western and central sections, rare towards the coast; Rhode
Island,--frequent northward; Connecticut,--frequent, reported as far
south as Cheshire (New Haven county).

South on shaded mountain slopes and in deep ravines to Georgia;
west to Minnesota.

=Habit.=--Shrub or small tree, 15-25 feet high, with a diameter at the
ground of 5-8 inches; characterized by a slender, beautifully striate
trunk and straight branches; by the roseate flush of the opening
foliage, deepening later to a yellowish-green; and by the long,
graceful, pendent racemes of yellowish flowers, succeeded by the
abundant, drooping fruit.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk and branches deep reddish-brown or dark green,
conspicuously striped longitudinally with pale and blackish bands;
roughish with light buff, irregular dots; the younger branches marked
with oval leaf-scars and the linear scars of the leaf-scales; the
season's shoots smooth, light green, mottled with black.

In spring the bark of the small branches is easily separable, giving
rise to the name "whistle wood."

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Terminal bud long, short-stalked, obscurely
4-sided, tapering to a blunt tip; lateral buds small and flat; opening
foliage roseate. Leaves simple, opposite; 5-6 inches long and nearly as
broad; the upper leaves much narrower; when fully grown light green
above, paler beneath, finally nearly glabrous, yellow in autumn, divided
above the center into three deep